To effectively convey information to a viewer via a display, the display needs to clearly and concisely present the information. Diagrams, graphs and charts can be used to more effectively display information to a viewer. To more clearly convey the information, labels are used on sides of the diagrams, graphs or charts to provide details about the information being displayed. Specifically, labels are used on axes of diagrams, graphs or charts to identify the information being displayed. These labels are an important component of data visualization.
Due to the type of data, amount of data and available space for the display, there is often times insufficient space on the display to effectively display all of the labels of the axes. In addition, labels are often too long to be displayed clearly in the available space next to the axes. To overcome these problems, techniques have been proposed that truncate the labels, reduce the size of the labels, change the orientation of the labels, or provide labels in multiple lines. However, all of these techniques are complex or take away from efficient and speedy data analysis. For example, it may be difficult to read labels on an X-axis that are displayed vertically or diagonally. Similarly, it may be difficult to quickly read adjacent labels that are displayed on multiple lines or labels with text that has been reduced in size. Furthermore, some of these techniques clutter the display because the labels are scattered in the available space on the display or require additional space outside or on the diagram, graph or chart that would otherwise be used to display the information being represented by the labels.
There is a need for techniques to simply display labels, while allowing the viewer to perform efficient and speedy data analysis.